The wind chime
by Natsu chan
Summary: A one short from Kaoru's prespective. Late in the Kyoto arc, our two main characters alone at dusk. Please r and r.


Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. I am merely borrowing the characters for my own entertainment.

Author's notes: Just a little fic from Kaoru's point of view, set around the end of the Kyoto arc. I'm not overly confident about it (it seems like an age since I've put Kaoru in anything) so feedback would be lovely. Thanks!

A faint, teasing breeze ruffled the hair around Kaoru's face and the soft melody of the wind chimes filled the tiny room. She leant against the door frame watching the slow lift of the blankets on the floor. From where she stood, in the gathering gloom Kenshin was little more than a dark mound in the centre of the room. She clasped the door frame in her palms and felt the hard edges of it kiss her skin along the length of her spine. She leant her head against the door frame, tilting it a little, so she could watch the comforting rise and fall of Kenshin's breathing. Kaoru was faintly uneasy at being alone with this strange unrecognisable version of the rurouni she knew so well. She listened for the soft sound of his breathing, focusing on it, as the silence settled around them. It penetrated even the deepest corners of the tiny room and flowed out into the hallway beyond. If she listened, she could hear the cacophony of sounds that a busy restaurant produces rising up from below, but somehow this tiny room on the upper floors seemed cut off from the world below. She knew it was better for Kenshin's sake. He'd been so badly hurt, and the wounds weren't healing as they should, but to her it seemed so very isolated and lonely. And Kaoru did not like being alone.

She watched Kenshin, and wondered if he knew. Sano had said with no shortage of bitterness that no one would ever know that the saviour of Japan was the same man they called a monster. That man's life now dangled in the balance, swaying helplessly like the tail on a wind chime. She closed her eyes briefly and listened. The faint scent of burnt incense and herbs filled her lungs. Then rising up from the veranda below were the soft musical notes, rippling and rising over the faint whisper of Kenshin's breathing.

He'd been unconscious or semi conscious for days. After the fight, he had returned limp in Sano's arms beyond the reach of voice or touch. No one could rouse him not even herself. There was a strange image in her mind of Kenshin draped in Hiko's arms like a small child, one arm dangling loosely against his shishou's leg. It was easy to forget that even Kenshin was once a child. The oddness of the image so out of place with the man she knew, reminded her that even the greatest of men are only someone's sons when all is said and done. With Kenshin it was an easy thing to forget, he was so strong in every way and he always seemed to survive somehow, that he'd become something more than an ordinary person.

With her eyes closed, she could see the scene in her memory. The road and the broken, shattered remains of the Aoiya gilded in a pale silver glow. Hiko standing back his arms folded, silent almost brooding as he watched the road. Everything had been still but for the slow creak of the restaurant's bones as the wind rippled through them. Then distantly three dark shadows appeared, two tall men trailing Kenshin's small wiry frame between them.

She could remember too, the way the air around the Aoiya changed. It had surged and fallen like water over rapids. The silence that had settled around them as they waited, growing more worried with each passing hour. Had give the air an almost solid physical presence laden as it was with their worries and fears. Only the deep groans of the Aoiya had penetrated the silence.

The black shadows on the road had sent a ripple of hope and relief through the Aoiya. She could still feel, it the odd, sharp tingling sensation that had jumped from person to person as they lifted their eyes to the three figures coming towards them. The pain and tiredness, the fear and worry had fallen from her in an instant as she surged to her feet. Her feet, had carried her without any order from herself straight to Kenshin's side.

In the moonlight Kenshin's deep red hair had seemed even darker and redder that usual and the road had been silver. The moon had made his very pale skin seem all the more bleached out and bloodless. And he was cold. She closed her fingers on the door frame a little tighter at the memory. His calloused hand when she had held it in her own had been ice cold. Then it all started to shatter. She remembered it all far more clearly, than she'd have liked to. The sudden plunge into uneasy silence at the sight of the small bloodied man draped against Sano's shoulder. A man who would not stir not matter what they did.

The sudden bright jangling of the wind chimes and the ice cold brush of air against her face pulled her from her memories. It was just her and Kenshin again. It was strange to stand there just the two of them. Strange to stand there, listening to the slow rise and fall of his breathing. Lingering in the door way her back pressed to the frame she lifted her gaze to the open window and the darkening blur of the mountains beyond. Somewhere deep inside, she was afraid to go any closer. Without Hiko's confident presence, without Megumi or Sano to drive out the silence, death seemed too close and intimate. Kenshin who grew more gravely ill by the hour seemed to be sliding downwards towards an irredeemable darkness. There was only his promise to return to Tokyo with her to hold on to. She had faith in Kenshin's word, she knew deep in her heart that Kenshin more so than most was a man of his word. He spoke little, so when he did it meant something. All the same, the weight of silence ate away at her courage.

So she stood in the open door way watching him and listening for each soft breath. She felt the breeze brush against her face with invisible fingers, flicking the fine tendrils of hair against her cheek. The wind chimes sang softly from far below and a canvas awning flapped. Kenshin breathed, slowly, softly filling the gathering darkness with his own quiet battle as Kaoru listened and fought her own.

(May 2008)


End file.
